Mujeres Problemáticas

It’s tough out here for a bruja. Everyday, we see amazing Latinas who are killing it at work, at home, at school, and in our communities, but that’s where it stops. We KNOW them, but we don’t SEE them. In politics, in the news, in films, and in books, our stories rarely get told and when they do, they often rely on played out stereotypes. It’s time we see ourselves as we want and deserve to be seen. (Where’s the summer blockbuster featuring la raza? Where are our new anchors? Can we get some more TV shows? What about some Grammy nods? They have like 100 categories!)

Before you disagree, let’s just say the facts are on our side:

Other communities of color had amazing, breakthrough moments of progress this last year from Black Panther to Crazy Rich Asians. Yet, we are still waiting to see even a glimmer of ourselves reflected in the mainstream. You know we love us some Oprah. We went and saw Crazy Rich Asians opening weekend. We recognize Beyonce as queen. This isn’t about begrudging another group its success. It’s not about some sort of oppression olympics. This is about rewriting the game.

And we do mean, literally, re-writing it. We want to READ OUR VOICES. As Latinas, we don’t see our voices, our experiences, our ideas reflected back to us. That just isn’t right, especially when you consider our market force. See above if you want to do some math about it.

The thing is, we Latinas have plenty to contribute. We’re not going to make a case for our exceptionalism or even our humanity here. If you don’t believe we’re fully human, interesting people, we aren’t going to try to convince you. But we are going to push back against the ways we’re being systematically erased, passed over, and ignored.

That’s why we founded Mujeres Problemáticas. We’re not the “good” women who do a bunch of work in the background and don’t get credit for it. We’re not super sexy ladies with accents a la Sofia Vergara in Modern Family (FYI we love Sofia. We just want Modern Family to get that there’s more to being Latina than being “spicy.” Also, accents aren’t funny, sorry, not sorry). And we’re not the “bad” women who care only about ourselves even if it means walking over our hermanas. We’re complicated. Our feelings are complicated. Our hot takes are complicated. Our very existence is complicated.

So expect to see some complicated, problematic, nuanced shit on these pages. We’re tackling media and culture, demanding better representation even as we fan-girl out over our favorites. It’s time we have a place to lift up the amazing Latinas who are doing the same work, doing it differently, and doing it better. We’re speaking out in all of our bruja glory and using all the power we have to rewrite the game so Latinas everywhere get our fair share. Come hang with us.